542 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ December 9, 1880. 
with him and sold them. If your correspondent could take eight 
or ten large strong hives on the moors he would return a richer 
man, and consider that his holiday there was as pleasant as it was 
profitable. 
The gains on the Scotch moors this year were unusually large. 
The weather was remarkably fine, the hives were well stored with 
workers, and the combs were not very well filled with honey. 
Probably the brood of the hives was well advanced and did not 
require nursing. Under such circumstances large strong stocks 
have been known to gather from 7 to 10 lbs. each per day, on 
both Clover and Heather ; but 20 lbs. per week per hive is con¬ 
sidered good and satisfactory work. It should be remembered that 
the weight gained by a hive is not a fair measure of the work 
done by the bees. Their own keep should be taken into con¬ 
sideration. When the Heather blossoms fail, or when weather 
prevents the bees from working, strong stocks lose in weight more 
than a pound a day. When honey is being gathered very fast the 
work inside the hives often gets into arrears, and this accumula¬ 
tion of work occupies the bees some days after the glut of honey 
has past. Hence the great consumption of honey for awhile after 
a great gathering. 
The honey season of 1880 in Scotland does not fairly settle the 
question of the superiority of the swarming system of management 
over the non-swarming. The season until August was a compara¬ 
tive failure. The swarms gathered honey enough to fill their 
hives with comb and brood, and probably hives that never swarmed 
at all had no more workers in them at the harvest season than 
mother hives and their swarms. If the glut of honey had come a 
month or six weeks sooner and the Heather had been a failure the 
non-swarming system would have appeared to advantage.— 
A. Pettigrew. 
OUR LETTER BOX. 
Address {Mrs. Horsley). —The address you require is Mr. Edwin Crook, 
5, Carnaby Street, Regent Street, London. 
Chickens Dying (E. C. G.). —Your birds require more nourishing and 
more easily digestible food. Very early in the morning give them warm soft 
food—barley or oatmeal, or pollard mixed with pot liquor or milk, and if a few 
kitchen scraps are added all the better. The whole should be mixed together, 
only sufficient liquid being added to form a rather dry crumbling paste. As much 
of this food should be given to them as they will eat readily. Give kitchen 
scraps and a little corn at mid-day, and a good feed of sound, not inferior, whole 
grain at night. Green food should also be supplied to them daily. There is little 
or no nutriment in tlie“ tail” Barley you are giving to them, and hence they are 
starving with their crops full. Spratt’s food given occasionally would also be 
beneficial. 
Feeding Fowls (Old Subscriber). —Poultry may be fed with horse Beans 
cracked, but we should prefer to give beau or maize meal mixed with minced 
vegetables, either Carrots or Cabbage. 
Crooked Combs (A Beginner). —We advise you to leave your combs as 
they are till April, then carefully cut away all the excrescences and irregularities 
you speak of from such combs as are not occupied with brood. Supply some bar- 
frames with straight comb between every doctored comb. If your hives swarm 
you can examine the combs again, and remove or re-arrange them till all are 
regular. The “solid mass” should be entii’ely removed as early as possible. 
The deeper cells will be reduced to their proper size by the bees themselves when 
they are wanted for brood. You need not meddle with them at all. Your 
arrangements for ventilation are quite sufficient, but as the weather gets warmer 
remove some of the pieces of carpet. 
Feeding Bees During Winter (A Novice). —Stocks should by the middle 
of October be provided with food sufficient to carry them through, with a 
margin, to the early part of March, and during the intervening period all dis¬ 
turbance should be absolutely avoided except where some error in management 
has rendered it imperatively necessary'. 
Wintering Transferred Bees (Idem). —Stocks transferred last autumn 
should be confined by a division board to just so much of their hive as they' are 
able to fill, as hives half empty of comb if left open to the full extent are much 
against the bees during winter. The great loss of heat this causes involves an 
increased consumption of stores and reduces the vitality of the whole, even, it 
may be, fatally'. Protect the bees above by a quilt, over which place a bottom¬ 
less and lidless box 3 or 4 inches deep and the size of the part of the hive to 
which the bees are confined. Fill this box with chaff, when you may assure 
yourself of its advantage by passing your hand through the latter on to the 
quilt, which you will find even during the coldest weather to be really warm. 
It is a matter of choice whether you transfer next spring before or after swarm¬ 
ing. We should transfer early, say the beginning of April, because the bees 
can be more easily helped in the frame hive than the skep. 
How to Divide a Stock in a Frame Hive (Idem).— You could increase 
your stocks “ by taking a sheet of brood and a few bees with it and placing 
it in another hive, afterwards adding to it a bought queen ; ” but the plan 
would be very' unphilosophical, as our explanation will show. If you so add the 
queen the stranger will be given to a mass of old bees, which are only persuaded 
with great difficulty to receive an alien mother, and in addition, should they 
start comb-building while they are unwilling to adopt the queen offered them in 
a cage, the comb made will be of drone size. We recommend you to proceed 
thus :—Find, on a fine day when the bees are in full flight, the queen in your 
frame hive, and lift out the comb of brood with the adherent bees and queen 
and pi ice it in a new hive, which must now be stood upon the old stand, while 
the old hive must go, of course, to some new.station. The bees in flight— i.e., the 
older bees—will return to their known position, and will thus make a swarm, 
and will commence to build worker comb to accommodate the eggs the mother 
is ready to lay r . Now add to the old hive the bought queen in a cage. The 
youngsters not yet old enough to fly will quickly accept her, and brood hatching 
out will quickly put the stock into condition. The frames must be drawn 
together to fill up the space from which the comb was removed ; but as soon as the 
queen is really accepted and the hive appears strong a sheet of foundation may 
be placed here, and this will be quickly converted into comb. Similarly a sheet 
of foundation on each side of comb with the made swarm will be of great help. 
A caution here is necessary. No more certain precursor of loss and disappoint¬ 
ment can exist than an over-anxiety to increase stocks in number. Never 
attempt dividing colonies until they are so strong as to show that swarming is 
not likely to be long delayed. 
Nubian Goats (Old Subscriber ).—We are not aware at what price some of 
the best bred Nubian hornless Goats can be obtained. They will commence 
breeding and giving milk at from eighteen months to two years old, and they 
have been known to continue in milk for two years without breeding again, Mr. 
Dickens’ stock especially; his address is 5, Hornsey Street, Holloway Road, 
London. We are not able to recommend any breeder in particular, but in 
giving the names of the prizewinners in the class for hornless goats animals 
may no doubt be obtained from some of these exhibitors, and the stock no doubt 
are Nubian or having a cross of Nubian blood in them. An application to 
either of the prizewinners will no doubt be quite sufficient to obtain good 
animals at a fair price, and every information which may be required concerning 
their capabilities for milking.—Metropolitan Dairy Show, October, 1880, Class 27, 
female Goats, long or short-haired, without horns, over two years old. First 
prize, Mr. J. Arnold, Union Lodge, Liverpool Road, N.; second and very highly 
commended, Mr. W. Chapman, 7, Compton Place, Canonbury ; third, Mr. J. 
Weston, 49, Arthur Street, King’s Road, Chelsea. Commended, Mr. J. H. 
Bayley, 29J, Great Sutton Street, Clerkenwell. Highly commended, Baroness 
Burdett-Coutts. 
Dairy Management and Food for Cows (R. II. II .).—In reply to 
your questions, “ What is the best book or guide for the management of a dairy ? 
the best food for the cows ? to give the largest quantity of milk, Ac. ? ” we 
can only refer you to the information given in this Journal on the 11th, 18th, 
and 25th of April, 1878, under the heading, “Management of a Butter-making 
Dairy.” The notes were contributed as the result of a lifetime of experience, 
giving at the same time all the latest improvements in the management of 
dairy cattle, &c. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
CAMDEN SQUARE, LONDON. 
Lat. 51°32'40” N.; Long. 0° 8’0" W.; Altitude, 111 feet. 
date. 
9 A.M. 
IN THE DAT. 
Rain, 
1 
1880. 
Nov. 
Dec. 
Barome¬ 
ter at 32° 
and Sea 
Level 
Hygrome- 
’ ter. 
Direction 
of Wind. 
Temp, of 
Sail at 
1 foot. 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature. 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
sun. 
On 
grass. 
Inches. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
In. 
Sun. 28 
30.389 
47.8 
45.9 
S.W. 
42.8 
52.3 
39.7 
76.4 
81.4 
— 
Mon. 29 
30.428 
41.4 
44.G 
s. 
43.0 
51.0 
42.4 
57.3 
34.8 
— 
Tues. 30 
30.443 
42.(3 
41.5 
s. 
42.8 
47.4 
39.3 
66.4 
81.4 
— 
Wed. l 
30.176 
46.7 
45.7 
s. 
42.9 
49.6 
41.4 
60.3 
38.3 
0.(30 
Thurs. 
S0.243 
38.6 
S8.4 
N.W. 
43.4 
49 4 
36.0 
67.7 
28.9 
— 
Friday 3 
80.325 
41.6 
40.7 
N.E. 
41.0 
49.S 
32.4 
47.4 
28.8 
— 
Satur. 4 
30.439 
40.7 
45.1 
N. 
42.6 
51.2 
41.0 
54.8 
38.7 
— 
Means. 
80.349 
44.3 
43.1 
42.8 
50.0 
88.9 
61.5 
83.1 
0.030 
REMARKS. 
28th.—Fair with sunshine, calm and mild ; starlight evening. 
29th.—Fair, damp, and mild ; windy in forenoon. 
30th.—Morning fine with sunshine ; afternoon misty and damp, 
ist.—Fair and calm, rain at 9 p.M. 
2nd.—Sunshine in forenoon ; very damp afternoon ; thick fog in evening. 
3rd.—Foggy morning, generally cloudy and damp. 
4th.—Fair, damp, and mild. 
Barometer high, and temperature also considerably above the average.— 
G. J. Stmons. 
COVENT GARDEN MARKET.— December 8. 
There is very little to quote about supply and demand just now, our market 
remaining very stationary. Large arrivals of American Apples are still to hand, 
as also St. Michael Pines. A small consignment of Pears from California has 
reached us this week. 
FRUIT. 
B. d. 8. d. 
Apples. } sieve 2 6 to 4 6 
Apricots. box 0 0 0 0 
Cherries.. IP lb. 0 0 0 0 
Chestnuts. bushel 12 0 16 0 
Figs. dozen 0 0 0 0 
Filberts. ... IP lb. 0 0 0 0 
Cobs. IP tb 2 0 0 0 
Gooseberries .... j sieve 0 0 0 0 
Grapes . IP lb 2 0 5 0 
Lemons. 3P100 12 0 18 0 
s. d. s. 0 . 
Artichokes. dozen 2 0to4 0 
Asparagus. bundle 0 0 0 0 
Beans, Kidney.... ? lb. 0 0 0 0 
Beet, Red. dozen 10 2 0 
Broccoli. bundle 0 9 16 
Brussels Sprouts., i sieve 19 2 0 
Cabbage. dozen 0 6 10 
Carrots. bunch 0 4 0 6 
Capsicums. V 100 1 6 2 0 
Cauliflowers. dozen 0 0 3 6 
Celery . bundle 16 2 0 
Coleworts_doz. bunches 2 0 4 0 
Cucumbers. each 0 4 0 6 
Endive. dozen 10 2 0 
Fennel. bunch 0 3 0 0 
Garlic . IP lb. 0 6 0 0 
Herbs . bunch o 2 0 0 
Leeks. bunch 0 3 0 4 
s. d. 8. d. 
Melons . each 0 OtoO 0 
Nectarines. dozen 0 0 0 0 
Oranges . 100 0 0 0 0 
Peaches . dozen 0 0 0 0 
Pears,kitchen .. dozen 2 0 3 0 
dessert. dozen 2 0 4 0 
Pine Apples .... 4P lb 1 0 2 6 
Plums . 1 sieve 0 0 0 e 
Walnuts . bushel 0 0 0 o 
ditto . 4 P 100 0 0 0 0 
IBUES. 
s. d. s. d. 
Mushrooms . dozen 1 0 to 1 6 
Mustard* Cress .. punnet 0 2 0 3 
Onions. bushel 3 6 5 9 
pickling. quart 0 0 0 0 
Parsley. doz.bunches 6 0 0 0 
Parsnips. dozen 10 2 0 
Peas . quart 0 0 0 0 
Potatoes. bushel 3 9 4 0 
Kidney. bushel 4 0 4 6 
Radishes_ doz .bunches 16 2 0 
Rhubarb. bundle 0 4 0 0 
Salsafy. bundle 10 0 0 
Scorzonera . bundle 16 0 0 
Seakale . basket 3 0 3 6 
Shallots . IP lb. 0 3 0 0 
Spinach . bushel SO 0 0 
Turnips. bunch 0 4 0 0 
Vegetable Mariows each 0 2 0 0 
